He is the oldest son of Pulitzer Prize-winninginvestigative journalist Gary Webb, the subject of the 2014 film "Kill the Messenger," starring Hollywood heavyweight Jeremy Renner. In 1997 Ceppos was awarded the US Society of Professional Journalists' National Ethics Award. Pictured as a teenage fan: Gary Numan with Gemma, his now wife, getting his autograph in 1985 years before they got together Gary was 600,000 in debt, and on the verge of going under in. So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? [13] Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau, where he covered statewide issues and won numerous regional journalism awards. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. Parry, the first reporter to write about the US authorities' drug-running on behalf of the Contras, had survived a campaign by the White House to discredit first his story, then his reputation. Today, Narco News, with support from The Fund for Authentic Journalism, is pleased to announce that the Dark Alliance website has a new, and this time permanent, home at Narco News. He was born Sept.10, 1957 in Willcox, Ariz. to RG Webb and Winnie Mae Shelton. Connie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. ", Webb had already been cremated and his ashes scattered in the bay off Santa Cruz two weeks before. The February 2000 report by the House Intelligence Committee in turn considered the book's claims as well as the series' claims. "[80], Not all writers agree that the Inspector-General's report supported the series's claims. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. And he finallyyou know, they finally left the country. [50] By January, Webb filed drafts of four more articles based on his trip, but his editors concluded that the new articles would not help shore up the original series's claims. Webb - whose article had never alleged that the CIA deliberately targeted any ethnic group - became a national celebrity. By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. Webb was an assertive figure who drove fast cars and powerful motorcycles, hung heavy metal posters in his office and, at certain times in his life, smoked a fair amount of cannabis. If the antagonism of competing publications was predictable, what happened to Webb within his own newspaper was not. "That's right," says Blum. Webb's ex-wife, Stokes, now remarried and still living in Sacramento, had heard it all before, too. He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. . Eli Tomac on track during Media Day at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, March 3, 2023. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. Part of what makes OConnors article so compelling are the candid thoughts of Webbs former wife Sue Stokes. The Tragic 2004 Death Of Investigative Journalist, Gary Webb reports. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". } He also had this inherent belief that the truth could not harm him. Webb's reports prompted three official investigations, including one by the CIA itself which - astonishingly for an organisation rarely praised for its transparency - confirmed the substance of his findings (published at length in Webb's 1998 book, also entitled Dark Alliance). She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. A series of expose articles in the San Jose Mercury-News by reporter Gary Webb told tales of a drug triangle during the 1980s that linked CIA officials in Central America, a San Francisco drug . The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. In interviews after leaving The Mercury News, Webb described the 1997 controversy as media manipulation. He recently told the American Journalism Review (whose scrupulously researched piece, by Susan Paterno, is the only serious documentation of the Webb case I could find anywhere in the orthodox American media) that Webb's critics in rival newspapers, "quoted these CIA guys - who had a tremendous amount to hide - as though they were telling the truth. I have also followed up on key topics raised by Paul Cottrell will leading industry experts like Dr. Peter McCollough on the Tommy Carrigan Show, weekly in 2021 and 2022. The Los Angeles Times and other major papers published articles suggesting the "Dark Alliance" claims were overstated and, in November 1996, Jerome Ceppos, the executive editor at Mercury News, wrote about being "in the eye of the storm". The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. It concluded, however, that these problems were "a far cry from the type of broad manipulation and corruption of the federal criminal justice system suggested by the original allegations.". Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. Famously known by the Family name Gary Stephen Webb, was a great Engineer.He was born on August 31, 1955, in Carmichael, California.Carmichael is a beautiful and populous city located in Carmichael, California United States of America.. Gary Webb Early Life Story, Family Background and Education. So he blew her off. On one road trip, in 2001, he came off the motorcycle and split his helmet open. California senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein also took note and wrote to CIA director John Deutch and Attorney General Janet Reno, asking for investigations into the articles' allegations. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. .article-native-ad svg { [37], In 2013, Jesse Katz, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, said of the newspaper's coverage "As an L.A. Times reporter, we saw this series in the San Jose Mercury News and kind of wonder[ed] how legit it was and kind of put it under a microscope, and we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, I think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. How Kill the Messenger Will Vindicate Investigative Journalist Gary Webb [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. (Strawser) Webb. He was preceded in death by his wife, Melody Webb; parents and three brothers, Albert, Duane and Ronald. That was just the way he was.". [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. Both Gary's ex-wife Susan and his brother Kurt viewed the body and they confirmed the location of the wounds to me when I met them. A time of fellowship and remembrance is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, March 6, 2019, at Lake Ridge Chapel and Memorial Designers. . By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. ". 2) The series's estimate of the money involved was presented as fact instead of as an estimate. After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide. Steven Webb . Dispelling the Rumors: Gary Webb's Death Confirmed As Suicide *, 'Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion' is published in the UK by Seven Stories Press, priced 11.99, Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. [33] Golden also referred to the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer. I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. By the end of September, three federal investigations had been announced: an investigation into the CIA allegations conducted by CIA Inspector-General Frederick Hitz, an investigation into the law enforcement allegations by Justice Department Inspector-General Michael Bromwich, and a second investigation into the CIA by the House Intelligence Committee. When she got indignant," she adds, "he went to meet her.". But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. A Celebration of Life will be . "He told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. Leen, who covered the cocaine trade for the Miami Herald in the 1980s, rejects the claim that "because the report uncovered an agency mindset of indifference to drug-smuggling allegations", it vindicated Webb's reporting. News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his "Dark Alliance" series, published eight years before. According to a description of Webb's injuries in the Los Angeles Times, he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. [72] A New York Times profile of Webb in June 1997 noted that two of his series written for the Cleveland Plain Dealer had resulted in lawsuits that the paper had settled. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. Gary Webb - Wikipedia Despite some hyped phrasing, "Dark Alliance" appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."[47]. [39] The Post refused to print his letter. [49], The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. .article-native-ad strong { Sue remarried two years ago. Gary Webb's income source is mostly from being a successful . WEBB, Mr. Gary Lee, our beloved son, husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle went home with his heavenly Father Monday, August 29, 2011 at University of Michigan Hospital. Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. "[64] Webb's longest response to the controversy was in "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On," a chapter he contributed to an anthology of press criticism: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. "If there was an eye to the storm," Katz wrote, "if there was a mastermind behind crack's decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw most responsible for flooding LA's streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick. Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. When removal men arrived, on the morning of 10 December 2004, they found a sign on his front door, which read: ''Please do not enter. [62], Examining the support that Meneses and Blandn gave to the local Contra organization in San Francisco, the report concluded that it was "not sufficient to finance the organization" and did not consist of "millions," contrary to the claims of the "Dark Alliance" series. Unfortunately, the railroading of Gary Webb had begun and he was run over. After his resignation from The Mercury News, Webb expanded the "Dark Alliance" series into a book that responded to the criticism of the series and described his experiences writing the story and dealing with the controversy. padding:0!important; "But Gary thought that if something was true, it should be told. And this is not a happy story - or," she adds, "a little one.". Gary Webb became, quite unfairly, the victim of one of the most extraordinary examples of piling on by the mainstream press, ever.". A flood of inquiries about Gary Webb's shooting death prompts statement. [60], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. 'Dark Alliance' - both as journalism and as a book - is a convoluted narrative, but the crucial link it establishes is between the "agricultural salesman" Oscar Danilo Blandn, a Contra sympathiser with close CIA links, and his best customer, an LA drug dealer known as "Freeway" Ricky Ross. Relationships with other women ended badly. [59], The first volume of the report found no evidence that "any past or present employee of CIA, or anyone acting on behalf of CIA, had any direct or indirect dealing" with Ross, Blandn, or Meneses or that any of the other figures mentioned in "Dark Alliance" were ever employed by or associated with or contacted by the agency. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. Writing on the Los Angeles Times opinion page, Schou said, "Webb asserted, improbably, that the Blandn-Meneses-Ross drug ring opened 'the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles,' helping to 'spark a crack explosion in urban America.'